Corrected: Tire Recall Exposes Need for Tire Destruction

HILLSBOROUGH, NJ--May 14, 2013: Kumho
Tire's recent scramble to find thousands of recalled tires that were resold
to used tire dealers, instead of being scrapped, underscores the need for a
total destruction system for unsafe tires, says the inventor of
CompacTire.

Last week, the Korean tire company and Liberty Tire Recycling, one
of the nation's largest scrap tire processors, were working with the
National Highway Traffic Safety Administration to locate nearly 8,000
recalled tires sold to wholesalers in Texas, New
York, North Carolina and Puerto Rico. Kumho had originally recalled the
SOLUS KH25 passenger car tires in 2012 due to sidewall cracking that could
lead to a loss of air. Most of the tires were in inventory but nearly
12,000 were sent to Liberty with three
holes drilled in the tread for disposal. Instead, Liberty returned 7,875 recalled tires to the
marketplace. In late April, Kumho launched a second recall to capture the
resold tires. Liberty, based in Pittsburgh, PA, said in news reports that its
actions were appropriate. Liberty said
Kumho never informed it that the tires had been recalled until recently and
had not properly incapacitated them. The model recalled is: 225/45R17 produced in Vietnam in the weeks of 3411 through 2512 (August 21, 2011
through June 23, 2012

Fred Devlin, president of PHD LLC,
located in Hillsborough, NJ and the
inventor of CompacTire, says that the inadvertent release of defective
tires back into consumers' hands could have been avoided and the tire
manufacturer could have saved money on labor and transportation costs had
it submitted the tires to total destruction at its own warehouses.

Called the CompacTire system, the machine significantly flattens a tire
and holds it in position with common steel nails acting as staples. Devlin
invented this technology in 2004 after observing tire service staff at a
local retailer spending more than an hour loading discarded tires on a
truck bound for disposal. Devlin, who holds patents in 33 countries that
generate 2 billion waste tires each year, licenses the technology to tire
disposal companies in the U.S., Canada,
Great Britain, France and Australia.

"CompacTire permanently destroys the tire, reduces its size by more than
50 percent and cuts labor and freight expenses in half," Devlin says. "It
allows a manufacturer, recycler, or tire dealer to pack and transport
discarded tires more efficiently putting this commodity into a form that
allows the waste industry to collect it using its current assets."

Without total tire destruction, manufacturers are liable when a tire
that has reached the end of its useful life is recycled back onto vehicles
via used tire dealers. In 2007, the RMA issued a Tire Information Service
Bulletin listing many negative factors affecting the condition of used
tires, and advising caution to consumers considering them for purchase.